The ETSI SCP standard body is currently discussing and defining a new optional High speed interface between a mobile terminal and the UICC (UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) Integrated Circuit Card) comprising the USIM (Universal Subscriber Identity Module) application allowing the terminal to access the services provided by a telecommunication operator.
If such a High Speed interface is agreed, it would be included in the ETSI TS 102.221 (release-7 or release-8).
However, the current discussion does not define any technical solution which allows the terminal to detect the UICC High Speed interface capability from the current interface defined in ETSI TS 102.221.
Consequently, if the terminal tries to activate the UICC using directly a High Speed Protocol (HSP) interface, it will be facing at least two issues, a long interface activation time, and contact allocation issue.
The first issue arises from the fact that the HSP is an optional feature. Consequently, some UICCs may not support this interface. Consequently, if the terminal first starts the activation on the HSP interface, it may take a long time before it realizes that the UICC doesn't support the HSP.
As an example of this problem, if the HSP consists of a USB interface, the terminal should first power the UICC up with the lowest voltage class, and then wait at least 20 ms before assessing if a USB device is connected or not. If the terminal does not detect the presence of the USB device with the lowest voltage class, it has to do the sequence again with the next voltage class, and so on.
Currently, there are three defined voltage classes, that means if there is no USB device (UICC) detected after the 3 sequences, the terminal has wasted at least 60 ms (this delay represents only the minimum waiting time to which the processing time should be added) before starting the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) interface activation.
The second issue arises from the fact that the HSP supported by the UICC should live together with any future ME-UICC (Mobile Equipment-UICC) interfaces (e.g. contact-less).
Depending on the chosen technology, the number of contacts could be not sufficient to be used by only one interface. Moreover, it is not clearly defined yet in the standards which contacts will be used for the HSP and Contact-less. Consequently, if the terminal powers the UICC up without knowing exactly which contacts are allocated to the HSP, it could physically damage the UICC.